Starbucks Cups to Earrings? Sure, Why Not?

About a month ago, I received a text from my brother.  It read, "Guess we are going to have some upcycled stuff at our house soon."  My twelve year old niece, Mikayala, was visiting him and wanted to do a project...a surprise project.  So the first place she looked for ideas was MY blog.  This was a proud day indeed!  My first familial convert, another dumpster diver in family.  The project that she picked was my most popular post to date, How to Make a Soup Can Herb Garden:

Not too shabby, eh? She used a power drill and everything to complete her project!  Proud. Day. In. Deed.  So this week, when she suggested that the design on her Starbucks cup would make for a cute pair of heart shaped earrings, I said "OK! Let's do it."  AND, "Let's make a video tutorial while we're at it."

We made quite a few pairs of these earrings in both heart and star shapes and they ranged in difficulty level from, "so easy a 5 year old could do 'em" to "okay, an adult could wear these too."  Here are a couple:

I hope you'll swing by my YouTube channel to see how we made these and show a little love to Mikayla for her YouTube debut!  After all, she did do her nails for you! :)

DIY Valentine Earrings: From Paper Beads and Soda Cans

And we jump straight from Christmas and New Year's to....Valentine's Day!  I'm actually not a fan of Valentine's Day, at least not the over commercialized Valentine's Day that we've all come to know and love.  Receiving highly over priced roses that will be dead in a week's time or waiting in line for two hours to get a table at your favorite restaurant are not all that romantic to me!! I'd much rather enjoy the company of loved one's while making dinner together and sharing handmade gifts from the heart.  To me, that says love! But I digress...

Today, I want to show you how I made these.

I did a video tutorial for this one so hop over to YouTube to get the step-by-step instructions.  You might find the following videos helpful, too, when making this pair of earrings:

How to cut an aluminum can

How to make a paper bead

Have fun with them!

It's Another DIY Project from Spoon Handles

I'm loving making earrings from spoon and fork handles and you'll find  lots of them in my Etsy shop.  But, if you're the crafty type and want to give it a try for yourself you can see how I make mine in this video tutorial.

Just a word of caution, you will need to use your Dremel on this one and there will likely be a few sparks.  But don't let that stop you, you'll be just fine if you use the proper safety precautions.  And if you're still not so sure about tackling this one on your own, look what you can find in my shop:

So, are you going to give it a go?


Linking up to:

Your Great Idea Linky Party on Or So She Says

Are You Ready For Some Good Times?

That's right folks, we're about to kick things up a notch! I got a Dremel for Christmas and I'm proud to say that I now know how to use it.  Okay, well, I still have a lot to learn but I'm having so much fun I just thought I needed to share it with all of you.  And I will share a new project with you each week, or thereabouts.

Wait, what?  You don't know what a Dremel is?  Well, it is only the greatest thing since sliced bread!  A Dremel is the brand name for a rotary tool, it's fabulous.  It can drill and cut through metal, engrave all kinds of stuff and is gentle enough to add fine details to a wood carver's masterpiece and even file acrylic nails (yep, it's a rotary tool that grinds down your weekly "fill").  The Dremel gets the job done by RPMs (it spins wicked fast) and not force. For a gal with nasty Carpal Tunnel Syndrome it's a God-send to not have to add so much force to the drill or jig saw.

Have I convinced you to join me on this journey yet?  Yeah?  Okay, you'll need a Dremel 200-1/21 Two-Speed Rotary Tool Kit before we get started. There are several versions of the Dremel but the 200 series is the one I have and the one I'll be using for my tutorials.  If you want  something even more wicked, check out the higher numbered series.  You'll also need safety glasses NO QUESTIONS asked.  It doesn't matter how dorky you think you look, you NEED them.  And you'll probably want some kind of protective gloves - the sparks will fly as will teeny tiny shards of metal!

While you gather your supplies, I'll leave you with a picture of the first project that I completed with my new Dremel.  It cut the handle off the spoon, carved out the heart and added a fun overall texture to the spoon.  The lettering was hand stamped, but you could engrave it with the Dremel if you've got the skill.

Junkr at <3

See you in a couple of days when I will show you how I made this necklace from a spoon!

Paper Beads Out of Just About Anything

A few months ago I started to experiment with making paper beads out of packaging material; from frozen food containers to feminine hygiene packaging, you name it I've tried it.  And it's created some really cool pieces, like this necklace made from a Tampax box.  However, I often found that the pieces of the cardboard would separate making the rolling process more of a challenge than I like.  I decided one day to stop fighting it and happy that I had because I ended up with a finished product that looked like this bracelet.

To achieve this sleeker look I had to peel the layers of the cardboard apart which means that I have a mass quantity of cardboard shreds sans color that I was going to have to chuck into the recycle bin.  I did not like this idea, so I came up with a better way to use those bland cardboard strips in my paper bead making endeavors.  Check out this two part tutorial on YouTube to see what I did.



First how to get your cardboard strips and roll those beads:

And now to add a little color and glaze those puppies:

Have fun and post below to tell me how you used your paper beads!